Sunday, January 23, 2011

As you begin reading this interview, take a look at the nearest clock. Now, dig this: Since yesterday at the same exact time, 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species have gone extinct, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals were released across the globe, and 29,158 children under the age of five died from preventable causes.

Worst of all, there’s nothing unique about the past 24 hours. It’s business as usual, a daily reality—and no amount of CFL bulbs, recycled toilet paper, or Sierra Club donations will change it even a tiny bit.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, says the Greens' link between the floods and coal mining is ridiculous.

Earlier this week, Greens Leader Bob Brown suggested the coal industry pay for part of the flood clean-up because they were somewhat responsible.

"We know that climate change is due to the burning of fossil fuels, primarily coal," he said.

"I've called on the Australian Government to ensure that the tax on super profits on the coal industry to be levied in full to help the country pay for future flood, bushfire and drought disasters caused by climate change."

But Mr Katter says Senator Brown's argument is inconsistent.

"There is a problem that will arise in the oceans that we should be cognisant of," he said.

"But Mr Brown, with all due respects, [has] the hide to say to the Australian people that it's causing massive flooding, when not a year ago and for the last 10 years, they've been telling us that it's been causing the drought on the Murray Darling."

He says the comments are insensitive.

"I react with great anger," he said.

"You can't let people get away with that sort of hypocrisy and misrepresentations to the public of Australia."

Sunday, January 9, 2011

As light enters the eye, it hits a protein called the cryptochrome, which surrounds the retina. Electrons in this protein are entangled, but light causes one part of an electron pair to get knocked out. The freed electron starts to wobble in reaction to Earth's magnetic field, but its still entangled brother also experiences these same movements and the magnetic pull from the rest of the molecule. The difference in how these two electrons move - because the free electron is no longer affected by the magnetic pull of the cryptochrome - creates patterns in the retina that the robin's brain can then interpret and use for navigation.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza – where more than half the 1.5 million population is under 18 – make it clear that they've had enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!"

It goes on to detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute everyday life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel and Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected to power in 2006.

"Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. "We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!"

The text ends with a triple demand: "We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"

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